I'll be doing a review of just the songs and the three performances (the two music station ones and the Shiyagare one) - the making of I will talk about in a separate post because I actually have quite a few thoughts on it.
Let's go!
- Sakura: I've always liked the song since I first heard it from the drama - is it super awesome and one of my favourites? No. Not at all. If anything, it is actually one of their more boring songs. I like it more than Daremo Shiranai, but not as much as GUTS or Bittersweet. Actually the song grew on me a lot after the performances came out. I mean... it's catchy. It's a classic theme song you know - they are meant to be catchy and it is definitely very catchy but it doesn't blow me away. So that's really all I can say. It sounds like a theme song. Haha. When it pops up on my playlist I'll bob my head to it, but I don't think I'll ever think "oh I want to listen to this song" and if it ever appears in a concert, well, I'll be excited for the dance. I'm trying to type things for as long as the song plays but I really have no opinions on this song so.. I'm kind of just waiting for it to end now ^^;; sorry!
- Rise and Shine: It sounds like your typical "ganbatte" Arashi song. Take that however you will.
- 同じ空の下で (Onaji Sora no Shita De): The opening sounds really pretty, but I could instantly tell the song wasn't going to catch my attention at all and it didn't. This is the most boring song on the single - I mean, it is also typical Arashi (but this time I actually mean it in the bad boring way). Like... at least Rise and Shine has the random english to get my attention for a bit, but this song... it really just sounds like any other ballad they've done. (It.. kind of sounds like Hatenai Sora at times actually).
- More and More: FUNNY THING ABOUT THIS SONG - when I first heard it I was like "oh god this is so not my style what the fuck no" and then I gave it an actual chance and I love this song. It is so damn catchy and like - it really isn't my style. I don't know what genre you would call this, but it really isn't - but I love the beat, and the backing vocals and the "give me more your life", and the part when they a member says something and then it goes "so borderless" etc. like... agggggh. This song. It's so fucking perfect. I really, really, really want them to sing this in a concert. I actually do go out of my way to play this song so yeah... do I think it should replace Sakura as the A-side? No. Sakura works because it sounds like your typical theme song, but I definitely think this song could have been material for an album. So yeah - the only reason I didn't just scrap this review in to a one liner that said "nice single, kind of boring" was really just because of this song and my slight need to gush about it.
Thoughts about the PV:
When I first saw the PV I could not stop laughing because the members look SO BORED and it is in such contrast with the song. Like. When you hear the song you imagine the members - even if they're standing there - to sing it while.. I don't know - while bobbing their heads or moving a bit, but no! They literally just stand there looking like they got their souls sucked out of them and they're about to fall asleep. Honestly. Wow guys - you need to chill out, your excitement in this PV is just killing me. I can just feel the energy. So overpowering. Wow. And this is the entire PV.
Honestly, in a weird twisted way, this might be one of my most favourite PVs precisely because it is just so fucking bland compared to the song. I mean - songs like Your Eyes and Hatenai Sora, where the song itself is also quite... low key and mellow - when you get standing PVs for those songs it is just hella boring because it's boring x 2. But with a song like Sakura, where you expect SOME TYPE OF MOVEMENT, no, all you get is them looking like zombies and that contrast is honestly the most hilarious thing to me. I legit laughed until tears came out of my eyes because it is so ridiculous.
On a closing note - the set is very pretty though. And to fully understand just how dead and non-existent the members were, you could probably CGI them out of the PV and it wouldn't have made a difference. Just have empty walls, and empty chairs, and that tree, and the PV would feel exactly the same. Seriously. *still dying from laughter brb*
Performances:
Alright the final thing for this post - the performances!
I really love the dance for this. I love how intricate it is - there's a lot of little things it, the hand movements, the transitions from one position to another - there's really a lot of things going on in the dance and it makes it look really cool and interesting! Some points to note, the Matsumiya moment (of course cause hello, they are my Arashi ship), and also that kaze trio moment where Jun pops up in between Aimiya I find super cute. All the twirling around on the floor I find... really attractive for some reason too, and just in general, I find the dance really awesome. Way better than Daremo so... yes!
As to specific things about each performance?
Music Station 2015.02.14 - it's a good thing they lip-synch cause they probably 100% would've choked on all the confetti and fucked up had they been singing live (which I wouldn't have minded to be honest, it would have been kind of funny). I mean, the confetti was already hilarious in itself, but can you imagine if they just could not sing half the lines because they were spitting out confetti? It reminds me of 2005 Sakura Sake when Jun sings that one line and then has to spit out confetti at the end. But I guess Arashi isn't allowed to fuck up anymore after the Meikyuu debacle *sigh*. What a pity. Also - Jun's hair. Ew. Although someone on tumblr theorized maybe he was mirroring the hair of Shun and Toma from the drama which... aww, that's so cute. But ugh, never do a mid-parting again, ever.
Music Station 2015.02.28 - Despite the hilariousness of the confetti incident the week prior, I'm glad we got to see the whole dance to the whole song without any distractions. Although... why the hell did they have to appear two weeks in a row? Couldn't they have just done this performance by itself? Whatever, anyway - so yeah, the whole dance was cool and also.. the super crazy set change? What? How. Also, is Jun the de-facto center for this song? Was it just me or was there just a lot of Jun close-ups? I really couldn't tell, I mean, I'm a Jun fan so I obviously don't care if Jun pops up a lot, but I heard some other fans mentioning it too - that there were a lot of Jun close-ups. It's kind of amusing if that is the case. Makes me really cross my fingers that he'll just randomly appear as a guest in the last episode or something (PLEAAASSEE).
Arashi ni Shiyagare - All I could think when watching it was that... they looked like such a boy band. And a terribly un-cool one at that. No, here me out. Okay, in music station you get all the black, but you also get the flashy set, and the nice shoes, and the weird gold lining on their jackets so they look cool in that glamorous performance sort of way. But in Shiyagare, they were clearly just trying to look cool in that... cool "hot" sort of way and like, I just found that kind of funny because like... I mean, I don't know - I wouldn't call any of the Arashi members minus Jun particularly hot. And also it let me see that some parts of the dance are just so Johnny's-esque and twirly. BUT - I thought the effects were super cool, and also I was glad we got to see other parts of the performance straight on since Shiyagare didn't try to zoom in the members as much as M-ste, so that was cool. Like, you really got to see the dance as a whole. I'm just saying, this performance kind of amused me because it made me realise that these were 30yr old Japanese men who seemed to be trying really hard to mirror those 20yr old KPOP boy bands - or is it just me? *shrug* whatever. I liked this performance you guys so don't start throwing knives at me okay? If you can't tell already, I have a weird sense of humor.
So yeah - those are my thoughts on the performance. It's getting late though and pokemon is calling so... I'll talk about the making of tomorrow!
Thank you for your review.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this single is really boring. It doesn't stand out.
I was watching Ouroboros and had an expectation with this song to turn out like "Truth" (my favorite) but much to my dismay, when the full song was released, it didn't give me that. It lacked the intensity that I thought it would have.
As for the performances. I liked the 2nd MSte perf (have yet to watch the other two stated here) and very much preferred it over the PV itself. I always had issues with Arashi's seemingly low-budgeted PVs and although I was impressed by the hand-made Sakura tree (respects fine artists), it's just doesn't cut it.
Even the 'Making of' was boring. And it doesn't help that the narration was annoying.
For the coupling songs, I have yet to listen to them again 'cause it didn't really get my interest the first time so I left it at that.
Ah. BTW, just want to point out a minor typo. The dates on your MSte perfs are "2014". Just a heads up. :)
Thank you for commenting!
ReplyDeleteYeah, even when I listen to Sakura now I keep thinking that it's missing something - like it should be more intense but it isn't. And the making of was such a let down. They're releasing a new single next month though (also with a making of!) so hopefully they learned their lesson!
and also, thank you for pointing out the typo. I will fix it right after this!